OK here we go with SOHO RC3 !!!! I think a lot of issues have been a addressed lots of updates (firefox seamonkey amarok) to name a few. There is a new plugin system in place called gecko-mediaplayer added xine-ui as was requested. Mplayer went thru a heavy upgrade and it's dependencies so handles a lot of new tricks. I added a little script to first install to ensure correct keyboard layout if non US in terminal mode. I really hope you all give this a good test as I really think this is it before final. Please post any reasonable suggestions to make it better and of course any bugs you may find still lurking. Thanks again for taking the time to test, it is much appreciated!!!http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/veclinux-6.0/iso-test/VL6.0-SOHO-RC3.isohttp://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/veclinux-6.0/iso-test/VL6.0-SOHO-RC3-CD2.iso

Loaded without issues. So far looks and "feels" good. Will look at previous issues and report the improvements if I ever get enough time (very busy the last few weeks and the next few may be the same).Mike

Logged

The plans of the diligent lead to profit...Pro. 21:5VL64 7.1b3 RLU 486143

To take short cut , i went "http://ftp://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/vectorlinux/veclinux-6.0/iso-test/" , grabed "VL6.0-SOHO-RCRC3.delta" and "VL6.0-SOHO-RCRC3-CD2.delta", then using--------------------------------------- xdelta pactch VL6.0-SOHO-RCRC3.deltaxdelta patch VL6.0-SOHO-RCRC3-CD2.delta-------------------------------------------

But "xdelta" command doesn't work at all on VL6.0 soho RC2.8, being lack of "libglib1.22...so"library....had to log into Knoppix DVD, using xdelta to get full RC3 ISOs....then "xdelta patch VL6.0-SOHO-RCRC3-CD2.delta" runing fine rc3 cd2 got generated without error at all...

"xdelta pactch VL6.0-SOHO-RCRC3-CD2.delta" just couldn't get crossed at all, it just prompted with checksum erors of RC2.8 cd1..then downloading"RC2toRC2.8.delta" again, "xdelta pactch RC2toRC2.8.delta" could get finished but still prompted checksum MD error with RC2 (but actually when downloading RC2, i used tools checked many times that MD5 's correct)but i carried on "xdelta pactch VL6.0-SOHO-RCRC3.delta", it could get passed and generated RC3 now , but still promted with inconsistant MD5,errors....tried above process many times , Md5 error remains..luckily I chose installing from iso image on hard disk, the md5 error doesn't make much trouble yet...Now i'm installing, finished soon...

Installation was flawless. I'd still like a pause to allow removing the CD2 before the system reboots. I can't install LILO to a floppy disk in the GUI installation and have to do my initial reboot with CD1. If my BIOS didn't give me an option to select a one-time boot device I'd have to stall things another way while I replaced the CD. Being able to remove CD2 before the reboot would make things more convenient.

VLPackager does nothing in VASMCC. If it's not going to be included it would be a good idea to remove the icon. LILO does not offer to include VL 7 alpha--the "fault" of VL7, not LILO, I think.

I did some updates (that were in /testing) and installed a bunch of programs, So far so good. I also installed XFce 4.6.1 from the repo and use that as my desktop environment instead of KDE. Fabulous! I haven't gotten brave enough to see whether I can get the choice of logging into XFce through KDM. I've just used my tried and true "choose linux-tui in LILO, after signing in type startxfce4".

One of my printers is a Lexmark X1270, which works in Linux but is not well supported. It includes a scanner, which has a very minimal Linux driver. The SANE driver has never worked well and puts in wide vertical streaks (the Windows driver doesn't generate any streaks). In earlier RCs, skanLite didn't display streaks in a scanned image and I thought they must have fixed up the SANE driver somehow. Alas, the streaks are back in RC 3.

I'm happy to report that Gnome player works great with DVDs. Mplayer is sorta working. Won't display in full screen mode for some reason, but I suspect that's just a minor setting I haven't found yet. Xine, on the other hand, bombs as soon as I fire it up.

I'm happy to report that Gnome player works great with DVDs. Mplayer is sorta working. Won't display in full screen mode for some reason, but I suspect that's just a minor setting I haven't found yet. Xine, on the other hand, bombs as soon as I fire it up.

Strange. I've (finally) had enough time to install it. No problems during the install, and the text mode extension has got the keyboard and X windows setup working.

I've tried a Amarok, which works fine. I've also had a bit of a play with videos (mainly .avi format). The KDE movie player works fine for me, so does Mplayer and Xine.

I had a couple of strange problems with KDE (does the name Gurnsey ring any bells?), including one I've not seen before - I reduced the desktop icons to the smallest size available (mistake, I wanted them smaller, but not quite that small). After which, I couldn't move the icons on the desktop, nor could I launch anything using them. Very odd. Upping them one size and they all started to work again.

So far, looks pretty good from here. Pity I dislike KDE 4.xx more and more every time I use it....

I installed RC3 on my Athlon 64 X2 desktop. Installation went fine. I did my usual setup while in KDE4 and when I had everything installed (printers, scanner, etc.) I installed XFce 4.6.1 through Gslapt, logged out, and logged in with startxfce4. (I had already selected Run Level 2 as my default; I really hate having the blasted X Window system perpetually present unless I do an init 2 command.) Has been pretty good except I've had Gslapt lock up three times in KDE4 or XFce4, which hasn't happened to me before. I've also had a lockup when I was working on Properties after right-clicking on a Panel Launcher in XFce4. These problems haven't happened (yet) on my ultra-Linux friendly Celeron desktop.

One disaster is that Frozen Bubble installed from Gslapt won't run. I get this:Can't load '/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.10.0/i586-linux-thread-multi/auto/SDL_perl/SDL_perl.so' for module SDL_perl: libSDL_ttf-2.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory at /usr/lib/perl5/5.10.0/i586-linux-thread-multi/DynaLoader.pm line 203. at /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.10.0/i586-linux-thread-multi/SDL.pm line 13Compilation failed in require at /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.10.0/i586-linux-thread-multi/SDL.pm line 13.BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.10.0/i586-linux-thread-multi/SDL.pm line 13.Compilation failed in require at /usr/bin/frozen-bubble line 58.BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/bin/frozen-bubble line 58.

I haven't had time to investigate these errors to see if it's a path problem I might fix with symlinks or just how Frozen-Bubble here is different from Frozen Bubble on my laptop and earlier VectorLinuxes.

On the Celeron desktop I had no problem playing a commercial DVD (the "Monk" TV show) with Xine and MPlayer. Gnome MPlayer didn't do as well but most of the time it worked okay. Dragon didn't work at all. I don't know if that's due to encryption on the commercial DVD but will test with a homemade DVD with no copy protection and see what gives. I installed XMMS and it disappears immediately if I try to enlarge the window to double size. Otherwise it does play music.

I find htop very useful and it's not installed in SOHO, so I added it from the repos.

Installation of RC3 went well and the final install looks good. A few comments:

There are some typos, spelling, and grammatical issues in the installer. For example when asked to insert the second disc I see the option on the button: “I dont have it” and the message says “You should insert it to the same drive used for the first CD.”

These should be edited to show: “I don't have it” and “You should insert it into the same drive used for the first CD.”

Not a big issue but I noticed several other small errors like that throughout the install but failed to make note of them. If possible, please direct me to the files where the messages and such are located in the installer. I will find time to proof-read them and submit edits.

I also saw when installing that the installer says KDE 4.4.1 is installing when really the version is 4.4.2. Also I saw that the “Graphic Image Manipulation Program” was being installed. The correct name is “GNU Image Manipulation Program.”

After the install (which went very well) I have a few concerns about the default settings.

First, strigidaemon is running by default. This eats up almost 100% of CPU on my machine. I let strigi do its stuff overnight and in the morning it was fine. However a new user would not be impressed by a sluggish machine right off. Along with this the strigidaemon doesn't do a whole lot of good if the KDE nepomuk service is turned off (so you can search stuff from Dolphin and such). I am of the opinion that strigidaemon should be off by default. Unfortunately it doesn't work like Google Desktop which only indexes while the computer is idle....strigi just goes for it.

Next I see that the default session settings are not consistent with previous VL releases. I think it was decided at one point that sessions need to have “Start with empty session” set by default. Otherwise programs from the last session open on login......which is not desirable for most users.

Finally I noticed that Desktop Effects were turned on by default. Perhaps this is only because I have a NVIDIA card that can do it that it detected that. But please consider that this probably should not be on by default, even for users that have the capability. The possibility of too many problems upon install could arise. Adventurous users can turn it on manually.

A few update requests. Hopefully these fall under the “reasonable requests” category.

KDE has a new version 4.4.4.OpenOffice has new version 3.2.1 (VL installed 3.2.0).

I know both of those are kinda big but would be nice to have the updates.

I haven't had a whole lot of time to play with it yet. But as you can see from my comments, things are looking good (since I'm just picking on piddly little things).